


The Calculated Truth of Timothy Stoker

by DesertLily



Series: Crew of the Institute [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Steampunk, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Dubious Science, Heavy Angst, Human Experimentation, Hurt No Comfort, Mad Science, Mad Scientists, Science Experiments, The Mechanisms AU, the start of something devious :)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:35:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26447926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertLily/pseuds/DesertLily
Summary: The loss of Danny breaks Tim in every single way. It destroys his life and consumes him entirely. He will do anything to see his little brother smile again.
Relationships: Danny Stoker & Tim Stoker
Series: Crew of the Institute [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1922572
Kudos: 14





	The Calculated Truth of Timothy Stoker

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bisexualoftheblade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bisexualoftheblade/gifts).



> The first part of the Kinda-But-Not-Quite-Mechs AU I'm worrking on for a friend! Please look at the tags. This is uhhh kinda dark

Timothy Stoker could use a lot of words to describe himself. Snarky. Quick-Witted. Charming. Smart. But there was one word he used that would always mean the world to him and would always stand out above the rest;  _ brother _ . He was the big brother of Danny Stoker and he really was proud of it. Since the day of Danny’s birth, the two had been almost inseparable. Tim had promised himself that he would protect Danny no matter what. He would never let anything happen to his little brother. He lived his life by that. And Danny...Danny was the best little brother he could ask for. He was smart and adventurous and Tim really couldn’t have been prouder. As they grew up, they were always referred to as the ‘Stoker boys’; rarely one was seen without the other. But as they grew older, they began to differ. Danny was always pursuing his newest obsession and Tim...Tim turned his attention to his academics. He applied to Oxford university and, to his surprise, he got in. 

There was some guilt about leaving home; about leaving Danny but Tim  _ thrived _ at university. He got higher and higher marks on each of his essays. He made friends. He went through many,  _ many _ relationships. He began to define himself as more than just ‘Danny’s big brother’. That wasn’t to say he just cut contact with his brother - of course he didn’t! They always called at least once a week. They made sure they were part of each other’s lives. Tim was happy for a time. He enjoyed his time at university and he did genuinely the publishing job he got after leaving. Life was damn near  _ perfect _ for him. Everything was! How could it not be? 

Then Danny died and Tim’s world fell apart. It felt like a joke when the news reached him. His baby brother - who he had just had lunch with a couple of days ago! - was gone. The most important person in his life was lost forever. His entire life had been devoted to protecting Danny and he had  _ failed _ . They said it was an accident; Danny’s latest hobby was urban climbing and it had gone  _ horribly _ wrong. Only, no one knew how. He had just been found dead with a leaflet scrunched tightly in his hand. It was a circus advertisement; the Circus of the Other. But no amount of looking; no amount of research and digging ever gave him the answers as to what had happened. No one knew what happened to Danny and it was driving Tim mad. 

Danny’s death consumed his every thought. Work no longer mattered. His friends no longer mattered.  _ Nothing _ mattered but finding out what the Hell had happened to his baby brother and how the hell he could avenge him. Because he would. Tim would make sure Danny’s killers suffered - no matter what. Tim’s madness only grew as he got no closer to discovering the circus. It was then he turned his mind to another solution. He was going to save Danny! He was going to find a way to bring his brother back! To save him! He had to! After all, where there was a will? There was a way. 

So Tim decided it was high time to do a second degree! A biology degree. After all, he didn’t want to be working blind. Besides, the labs gave him access to equipment nowhere else would. And maybe if bits and pieces occasionally went missing around the labs, why would anyone blame Timothy Stoker?! He was so chilled out and friendly! Tim was always careful; only taking what he needed sparingly as the spare room of his flat - the room  _ Danny _ had always stayed in - became his own personal lab. Tim lost himself to his research. Perhaps Frankenstein wasn’t a good place to start but Mary Shelley certainly did plant some interesting ideas within his head. 

And so began the experiments. 

To call them unethical would be an understatement. Tim never experimented on animals - He couldn’t! Danny had always been a fan of animals. Besides, they were too sweet to use; too innocent. So Tim turned his attention to people. After all, he’d need to know how to bring a human back from the dead if he was going to save Danny. Never once did the thought that Danny was  _ gone _ ; that his body was gone and decaying in the ground cross his mind. It couldn’t. It would  _ break _ him. 

It started with a small bit of grave robbing and stealing from morgues; not  _ living _ people. He worked with the dead. He prodded and poked; dissecting brains and every other part of the human body. He would strip a human down to their bare essentials; their most basic being before getting to work. It was test after test. Could he get a dead heart beating again? Could he get a dead brain working again? But he grew bored eventually. There were only so many pulsating hearts he could look at before they grew  _ pointless _ . They provided him with nothing new! Nothing he didn’t already know!  _ So what the fuck was the point?! _

That was when he began using human experiments. He was careful about who he picked and how long he went between taking someone; taking only those that would most likely not be missed. He never understood  _ why _ he knew they wouldn’t be missed but Tim didn’t question it. Tim had no time outside of working out how to save Danny. He would throw people to the brink of death then bring them back. He would kill them for a few moments then bring them back. Then he tried leaving people for hours; for  _ days _ before trying but they  _ never _ came back. It never worked! Not like it was supposed to! 

It was shortly after that Tim began to notice the man. A medium height, blonde, and looking seemingly  _ ageless _ . His clothes didn’t look quite right - not as if they were out of fashion, but more as if they weren’t from  _ Earth _ . Everywhere Tim went, the man was there. The coffee shop. The supermarket.  _ Even the cemetery he went to to find a new body _ . Then Tim started to notice the man standing outside of his house; watching him at all hours of the day. But he was never there when Tim went to confront him; to ask him what he wanted. That was, of course, until he was. 

The second the man saw Tim walking towards him, he smiled. It wasn’t a smile that reached his eyes but it was most certainly an amused one. “Timothy Stoker.” The name somehow felt  _ wrong _ as it was spoken. “Your reputation precedes you.” That made Tim hesitate. What reputation? His work was  _ private _ . No one else knew about it! “My name is-" 

“I don’t give a damn what your name is!” The words were practically snarled as he spoke. His eyes were manic as he stared down the stranger. “Just tell me what you want!” 

“Well.” The man’s smile widened. “You have a...unique set of skills and I know the secret of eternal life. I have a feeling we may be able to help each other.” 

Tim couldn’t tell you why he felt so compelled to take the man’s hand but he did. He took the man’s hand and his life changed forever. He would never be the same again. Though, it wasn’t like Tim recognised himself much anymore anyways. 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are always appreciated! Or hmu @ desert-lily on tumblr!


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